Sunday, October 9, 2016

Debriefing after Real Crises. The Best Learning

Financial disaster, major accident, cyber attack, massive recall. No simulation or crisis management exercise can ever
replace the real thing. When a real
crisis occurs, most aspects of the crisis management plan would be applied, but
there will be many more critical issues and intricacies which will appear.

It goes without saying that the strategy behind a solid crisis management plan is to protect the company’s operations and reputation by
providing a secure response. But the
identification of gaps in the response plan can be best discovered after a review of a real crisis situation.

A crisis simulation or exercise concludes with an
evaluation and critique where responses are examined and roles and
responsibilities reviewed.The aim of
these crisis exercises is to improve the effectiveness of the teams in managing
a crisis, at the same time as reviewing the crisis manual and the various human
and technical resources that assist the process.

A real event, aside from its serious consequences,
can offer greater learnings, particularly related to the complex issues of
communication, interactiveness and stress.

Any post-crisis evaluation must be done relatively
quickly after the event. The real value
of what has happened, and how crisis teams responded, can be only be learnt
while memories are alert to the central issues of the response.

The purpose of the post-crisis evaluation is not to
investigate the cause of the incident nor items such as emergency response,
product recall action or security performance, but more how the crisis
management team performed in its role.
Was the crisis identified effectively?
Was the team called out efficiently?
Could the team respond immediately and was the response effective?

Post-crisis evaluation is about managing and
controlling the corporate issues related to the future of the business. The following items need to be addressed in
the audit:

1. A narrative of the actual event. What happened, why and how and what caused
the event?

2. How was the response managed by the crisis
management team? How did the response
relate to incident and operational response procedures? What
was the decision making process based on?

3. Were human and technical resources
adequate? Where did they fail and how
could they have been improved?

4. Is the organisation still at threat from
the problem or similar problems?

5. What were the unintended consequences that
came out of the original incident?

6. Were there any barriers to communication?

7. Were all stakeholders advised
effectively? If not, what were the
problems?

11. Were there any barriers to crisis response
from senior management?

12. Were legal issues dealt with
efficiently?

13. Was the spokesperson’s role effective? Were messages continual and consistent?

14. How was business continuity and recovery
managed? What were the problems?

15. What has been put in place in the short term
and the long term to prevent this crisis from happening again?

This post-evaluation needs to be carried out by
either outside consultants or a senior management team and preferably not by
the crisis management team. It is
designed to improve operations, decision making, plans, skills and to ensure
the crisis management team has done its job effectively.

The post-evaluation team needs to interview the crisis
management team, management executives, employees and external
personnel/contractors involved in the crisis response.

A post-evaluation project is no easy task. While it has to be done as soon as possible
after the crisis has occurred, it needs time for investigation, review and context. The project team needs the support of the Chief Executive and senior
management, and commitment has to be given to ensure that the learnings from across the business can be incorporated in the overall crisis managing planning
process. This process ensures continual improvement and further development of a best practice response.

The learnings of the post-crisis evaluation of a real event should be made available for training and response reference to the crisis management team.

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About Me

Ross Campbell is Principal and CEO of RCA Crisis Management, a crisis management consulting firm specialising in response strategies and pre-crisis training for many global companies and government. With his team of specialist consultants, he trains hundreds of CEOs and executives at head offices and sites. He is author of CRISIS CONTROL - PREVENTING AND MANAGING CORPORATE CRISES (published by Penguin).